


Home and Away

by phinnia



Series: Delta Quadrant Babies [9]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 17:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19381810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: The end, and a new beginning in a new place.





	Home and Away

“Wow, look.” Owen stared out the ship’s window. “A Borg ship!”

“What kind?” Shannon looked out beside him. “A cube, or a sphere?”

“A sphere!” he says. “Neato! We’re in some kind of big nebula thing.”

“Ooh, what’s that?” Shannon looked at the stars flashing by.

“I dunno. Let’s ask somebody. Aunt Sammy?” Owen walked over to Sam Wildman. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” She looked out the window. “This is a lot faster than warp nine, though.”

 

“I wonder what that blue planet is?” Julia says curiously. “It’s got a lot of water on it.”

“Yeah.” Shannon nods. “We’re in orbit of it. Wonder if Dad and Harry are going down there?”

“Maybe we can go too.” Owen suggests. “Look, it’s got a moon. Wonder if there’s anything fun to do on the moon.”

The door opened, and their father came in, grinning broadly.

“We saw the Borg sphere, Dad.” Shannon says seriously. “That was great! How were we going so fast? Did Aunt B’Elanna do something to the engines again?”

“Nope. But she did have her baby.” Harry comes in after him. “She had a little girl named Miral.”

“Can we go see the baby?” Owen asks.

“What’s that blue planet?” Julia pointed out the window again. 

“That is Earth.” Harry picks her up. “Your home. My parents and your Dad’s parents and your Mom’s parents? They all live on that planet.”

“Oh, _wow._ ” Julia says. 

“I thought it was all just a big fairy tale.” Owen stared out the window. “Earth.”

 

There were a lot of visits, to people that the triplets had previously only seen on screens, which meant itchy dress clothes and a lot of sitting still and a lot of rooms with not enough toys in them. They got fussed over, though. A lot. Their grandma Julia made them cookies and their grandpa Owen made them all little puzzles with their names in them and Harry’s mom and dad were very fussy about all the stuff they’d learned in the Delta Quadrant. And in a way, it was a big relief to be allowed to run around their mom’s house in Indiana, getting messy in regular clothes and splashing in the pond, while their father and Harry did something strange called ‘job interviews’. Grandma Gretchen was a really good cook. She made pie. They went out and picked berries for it.

But their dad and Harry came back, looking tired and happy.

“How would you guys like to live on a big space station?” Harry asked them.

“Wow, really?” Shannon said, her eyes wide and bright. “With ships? Do ships come there?”

“All the time.” Their father flopped down in the grass beside them. “And guess what else. There’s a wormhole that goes all the way to the Gamma Quadrant and back.”

“We can all live there?” Julia asked curiously.

“Well, the three of you and me and Harry.” Tom whistled on a blade of grass. “They’re looking for a science guy and a security chief. Besides, I like this particular station. I met Harry there. And there are other kids, there’s a planet we can go to. And we can go through the wormhole to see new planets.”

“Cool.” Owen says.

Harry grinned at Tom. “He’s picking up all your twentieth century slang.”

 

Colonel Kira Nerys watched as the shuttle docked. It was an interesting design, new. She hadn’t seen this design before. _Delta Flyer Three,_ the shuttle was called.

Her new science officer and security chief were arriving on this shuttle. An interesting pair. She’d met them over subspace and reviewed their files. Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris and his husband Lieutanant Harry Kim. They were part of the ship that had been lost in the Delta Quadrant for so long - Voyager. 

She hoped they were good. Tom’s early record had some black marks, but so did her own. Janeway had given him a second chance, and he’d performed admirably. 

The shuttle docked in bay five.

The docking clamps cleared, and she heard … children’s voices?

“We’re docked! Dad, Harry, can we go? Can we go?”

“Yes. But don’t run off too far!”

Three chlidren tumbled into the airlock, laden down with bags, chattering among themselves. They all seemed to be about six or thereabouts. Two girls and a boy.

Kira looked down at them with a smile. “Hello.”

They all stopped talking and looked up at her seriously.

“Hi.” One of the girls says, sticking out a hand. “I’m Shannon Paris. This is my sister Julia, and my brother Owen. We’re triplets.” She pushes her reddish hair out of her face. “I like your hair. What’s your name?”

She smiles, and shakes the girl’s hand. “Kira Nerys. You can call me Nerys.”

Harry and Tom came out of the shuttle, talking.

Harry dropped his bags and saluted. “Colonel!”

“Oh, at ease, Lieutenant.” she said, laughing. “Your children were just introducing themselves. I didn’t know you came with family, we’ll have to assign you to different quarters.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Tom asks.

“Oh, no. Actually it’ll be nice to have a new family on the station. A lot of families might be moving back now that the war’s over.”

“I don’t suppose Quark’s is still around, is it?” Harry asks.

“Yes, it is.” Nerys sighs, rolling her eyes. “Nothing could kill that little reprobate off. Why?”

“Tom and I met there, actually.” He gives a fond glance to his partner. 

“Well, there are tons of people who might want to look after your little ones, I’m sure. You’ll have to make medical appointments to get them all checked out - and yourselves as well. Station protocol. Can you both start alpha shift, say … three days from today?”

“I think that’ll be fine.” Tom nodded. “If there’s a problem, we’ll let you know.”

“Excellent.” She nodded back and walked down the Promenade.

 

Julian Bashir was lounging in his office, looking through the calendar of the day. Looked like the same sort of boring stuff. Just the usual welcome-to-the-station-hope-you-haven’t-picked-up-anything-horrible-appointments. Two men, three children. Boring, boring.

He stuck his head out of his office. “Is there a Tom Paris here?” He’d heard that name somewhere, but couldn’t think of where at the moment.

“Yup.” 

Julian put on his Serious Young Doctor persona and went out to see his patient, who was sitting on one of the bio-beds, kicking his feet.

“Hi!” Now he remembered where he’d heard the name. “You’re the new security guy, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Tom Paris.” He grinned infectiously. 

“Julian Bashir.” The Doctor shook his hand and ran a scan. “You were on - oh wow, you were on Voyager. Shit, you guys must have seen a lot of action.”

“Yup.” Tom says cheerfully. “Nice to have some down time, actually.”

Julian did a scan. “You are in … incredible shape, I can’t believe it.”

“Well, Harry keeps me fit. You know, bedroom calisthentics.”

“Tom.” a voice that must be Harry says in fond exasperation from the other room.

“He loves it.” Tom winks.

Julian looked at Tom curiously. “Do you guys play darts?”

“Like … pub darts? Sure! Well, I do. Harry can probably learn.” 

An Asian man poked his head in the exam area. “Harry can speak for himself, too.”

“It’s like rings, in Fair Haven. Where are the kids?”

“They are coloring. Someone named Ezri - a Trill, I think? - says she works here, a counselor, and she has coloring stuff, so they ran off with her.” Tom hopped down, and Harry sat on the biobed instead.

Julian ran his scanner over the Lieutenant. “And you are … also in excellent shape! All up on vaccinations. Very good work. Nothing for me to do, really.”

“Here.” Harry takes an isolinear chip out of his pocket. “This is the file on the triplets. You might want to skim it first. Especially the beginning.”

“That’s the good part.” Tom’s eyes were twinkling.

Julian puts it in a padd and starts reading. He skims. “This … is about an engineering experiment. Are you sure this is the correct file?”

“Oh yes.” Harry nods. “Keep reading.”

Julian’s eyes were round. “You broke warp ten.”

“Yes.”

“And … you kidnapped your captain?”

“Yup.”

“And you both mutated into orange and green amphibians.”

“As pictured in figure A.” Harry says helpfully.

“And there were three offspring.” Julian’s eyes were starting to bug out of his head now.

“Then our Doctor turned Kathryn and myself back to human beings, and the babies - he’d brought the babies back to study - got turned back to humans also. Some kind of DNA thing. I never really understood that part.” Tom shrugged. “But since the whole warp ten thing was my idea, I have custody of the kids.”

“So … those children in the back are … former amphibians.” Julian sat down on a stool.

“Yes.”

“Do they know they were formerly amphibians?”

“Yes.”

Julian was starting to get a headache, and that didn’t happen a lot. “All right! Let’s look at their medical files. Well, Shannon … has an allergy to methomaloxone … okay, but nothing else looks serious. They’re very … very bright. Is that because of the … amphibian-ness?” There was no other word for that. Amphibianosity? Amphibian-ness.

“We don’t actually know.” Tom says. “When they turned human, they were sort of two and a half in human years, and they learned a lot. They sort of learned exponentially.”

“I … I see. Well.” He looks through the file. “A lot of tests have been done. Pretty much all of the tests I would recommend. I would like to take a look at them.”

Harry goes into Ezri’s office and brings out one of the triplets. “Shannon, this is Julian. He’s the doctor here, he just wants to take a look at you and make sure you’re okay.”

“Is he a hologram?” Shannon asks.

“No, he’s a real person.” Harry says seriously.

“Okay.” Shannon hops up on the bio-bed. “What d’you want me to do first?” She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue. “Aaaah.”

 

“Ezri’s got a sym-bote inside her body.” Owen says over dinner. “She’s two people at the same time! Well, actually she’s a whole lot of people. She’s Tobin and Jadzia and Curzon and I forgot the other ones. She’s lived, like, eight whole lifetimes, dad. Or maybe it was _nine_.”

“That’s a lot of lifetimes.” Tom says.

“And the guy that used to have your job was a shapechanger guy. And Ezri used to have Harry’s job when she was Jadzia but Jadzia got killed and that was sad.”

“He also has your taste for gossip.” Harry says quietly. 

“Well, somebody had to get it.” Tom shrugs. 

 

Tom looked around his extremely tiny office. 

It was very small. It had a desk, a terminal, and … that was the office. There were holding cells. That was about it. 

He looked across the Promenade.

Quark’s was opening up.

Well, no time like the present. That guy probably did more than rip off green ensigns for lobi crystals. He sauntered across the Promenade and went inside.

 

The place was empty except for himself and a large, bald Lurian sitting at the bar. He vaguely remembered the Lurian from last time.

Quark’s back was turned, but he turned around as soon as Tom leaned against the bar.

He looked at Tom curiously. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Lobi crystals. “ Tom smiles. “Green ensign, dark hair. Seven years and change ago?”

“Oh! Right!” 

“Incidentally, thanks. Married that guy.” He sits down at the bar beside the Lurian. “Got any Scotch?”

“What’s your drink?”

“Oh … Dalwhinnie, if you’ve got it.”

“There’s some somewhere.” Quark looks in a bunch of dusty bottles and then pours Tom two fingers in a glass. “So you’re the new Odo.”

“I am.”

“You’ve got some big boots to fill. Well, not really, he always made his own boots.” A twisted smile. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you turning into a chair.”

“No.” Tom has a sip of his Scotch. The burn is pleasant. “Where’d he go?”

“The Ancestral Home of the Changelings. The _Great Link_.” Quark made a face. “At the end of the war. They were all sick, and he had to heal them. Never said goodbye, either.”

“Harry and I missed the whole war. Stuck in the Delta Quadrant for seven years.” Tom says.

“Really?” Quark leans across the bar. “Anything interesting out there?”

“A lot interesting out there. Mostly stuff that wants to kill you.”

“Run into any Borg?”

“Oh, God. _So many_ Borg. Couple of Ferengi that went through a wormhole, that was interesting, they got stuck there, made a lot of profit off the indigenous life forms.”

“Well, _of course_ they did.” Quark looks at him like he’s dumb.

“Rule twenty-eight. Morality is often defined by those in power.” Tom says.

Quark looks at him with a new respect. “You know the Rules.”

“Some of them.” Tom says modestly. “Not as well as you do, I’m sure.” He is aware of the many rules on flattery. 

“Dad! Dad!” Julia runs down the hall, peering into his office, and then spots him in the bar. “Dad!”

Tom sighs and picks her up. “Yes, Julia? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I’m on break ‘cause I finished all the math.”

“Well, go back. And no bugging Harry, he’s working.”

“Can I have some of your drink?”

“You’ll hate it.”

“I want some anyway!”

Tom hands her the glass.

Julia takes a sip. “Yuck.” She hands it back. “Okay, bye!” She runs back the way she came.

“Cute kid.” Quark says, polishing the bar. 

“She used to be a lizard.” Tom smiles to himself. “She’s part of a set of triplets. I was a lizard for a few hours.”

Quark drops the bar rag. The Lurian leans in, sensing a good story.

Tom grins, and starts telling it.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more of these, of course there will :)


End file.
